Ideology Of Reforms: Joint Programs In The French And Russian Education Systems

Ideological foundation of the two higher education systems

The modern French system of higher education in its main features was formed in the 19th century and is fixed in three decrees (of May 10, 1806, March 17, 1808 and November 17, 1808) of Napoleon's government. The history of the French education of the 19th century is described thoroughly and in detail in the work by S. Kozlov (Kozlov, 2013). We will focus only on two aspects (egalitarianism and meritocracy), essential for understanding our subject.

Being in many ways a product of the revolution, French education could not fail to carry the ideology of "Freedom, Equality and Fraternity". So far, anti-liberalism, solidarity, egalitarianism (the equality of opportunity), meritocracy (the principle of personal merit) have remained socially significant principles in this field (Friant, 2013). It is obvious that the last two principles come into conflict with one another, which has become especially acute and crucial in the reforms of F. Hollande and E. Macron.

The previously stated principle of egalitarianism, proceeding from which access to higher education should be provided to all categories of the population, certainly works in France, but with a number of reservations. Somewhat simplifying, we can say that the HE system consists of universities and the so-called "grandes écoles". The latter have always been and remain an elite, specialized and highly professional sector of education (Felouzis, 2012; Christophe, 2013). The competition there is very tough, the diploma is prestigious, and upon graduation, employment is practically guaranteed, which cannot be said about the university diploma. Ever since the Napoleonic reforms, the grandes écoles have been intended for the selected few, and the faculties for everyone else" (Kozlov, 2013). However, one should not underestimate the role of universities in France. First, a number of very prestigious areas of training are carried out only on the scope of universities, e.g., law and economics. Secondly, university education is mostly focused on broad knowledge in what is called "common culture". The organization of full-fledged double-diploma programs with grandes écoles and similar institutions with high professionalization and narrow specialization (School of Journalism, Translation School, etc.) is a very difficult task. The first obstacle is a high competition at admission (one does not enroll in a university, but signs up for it), and the requirements for applicants in France and in Russia are extremely different. The second serious problem is the difficulty of harmonizing the curricula, which differ significantly in the principle of formation.

The French system of university education is spiritually anti-neoliberal. This manifests itself in the principled position of society that does not accept the transformation of the university into an appendage of power, in a broad sense, and of the capital and the use of the university to serve the needs of the latter. One consequence of this position is the autonomy of the university and the protection of the principles of solidarity, accessibility and free education. The Russian education system of recent decades largely focuses on Anglo-Saxon neoliberal models, but the notions of mass consciousness that go back to the Soviet past with its ideology of accessible education, equal chances, positive discrimination in pronounced meritocracy compensate for the neoliberal policy vector. Thus, it can be said that the values shared by the majority of the society are largely similar, and the common ideological climate of the two countries does not create serious obstacles to the use of joint forms of implementing university educational programs.

Vectors of HE reforms in France and Russia

The crisis state of the Russian and French HE systems of the last two decades, caused by both external and internal causes, is evidenced by a series of reforms affecting various aspects of university life. Let us consider several issues of reforming fundamental to the problem under consideration and show that the nature and direction of the reforms in Russia and France have many similarities. More complete data on the number and nature of French reforms are presented in the work by S. Tagirova (Tagirova, 2015).

Under the 1968 reform in France, the single big universities were decentralized, and the traditional faculties were transformed into Units of Education and Research (UER, to become UFR as of 1984). The main consequence of the reform was the large autonomy granted to universities in both financial and academic activities (Picard, 2009). The state controls the work of universities: any educational program undergoes examination and validation, the ministry issues a license for its implementation, but the program is fully prepared by the university, there are no state standards, nor is there a mandatory block of disciplines in the master's program curriculum. However, autonomy has the opposite side: the university diploma itself is not sufficient to get a job in most state institutions. Thus, to become a university professor, one needs to pass a rather complicated competition in the Commission of the National Council of Universities (CNU), and to have the right to teach on the secondary level, one needs to obtain the so-called CAPES ( Certificat d'Aptitude au Professorate de l'Enseignement du Second degré, a secondary school teaching certificate) or pass an aggregation.

In Russia, the expansion of opportunities aimed at the autonomy of universities occurred much later than in France. It is conditioned by the reform of education conducted with the passing of the federal law "On Autonomous Institutions" of November 3, 2006, No. 174-FZ (Federal'nyj zakon 2006), the new version of the Federal Law on Education, the systematic introduction of changes in the educational standards of higher education from 1994 (GOS VPO), 2000 (GOS VPO-2), 2011 (FGOS) to 2012-2016 (FGOS 3+), with the appearance of the right for the leading Russian universities to develop their own educational standards, as well as to independently award the academic degrees of candidate and doctor of sciences.

Such systemic changes contribute to the integration of Russian universities into the European educational space and facilitate the organization and implementation of joint programs. For example, it will become much simpler, to defend dissertations under dual academic supervision. It will be possible to organize a joint commission (jury) on defense, which will lead to the possibility of one defense and the issuance of a diploma of two universities. At the moment, the defense procedure is very complicated, the presence of the Higher Attestation Commission virtually brings it to two defenses and two texts.

It seems to us that the autonomy of Russian universities and, in particular, the right to award an academic degree independently will significantly ease the system freed from a number of bureaucratic links, which will favorably affect the programs of joint supervision. However, there is one serious "but" concerning the form of state control over the quality of diplomas.

The candidate's diploma (PhD), issued in Russia, is de jure at the expense of the Higher Attestation Commission and de facto national, while in France it is nothing more than a university diploma, that is, at the moment they are not symmetrical from an institutional point of view. When defending a thesis in France, one does not deal with codes and ciphers of specialties, there are no Dissertation Councils that have the right to carry out defenses only in 1-2 areas. It is the university itself that formulates (extremely broadly) the areas under which defenses are carried out and doctoral programs work. The very fact of defending a dissertation in France does not have the prestige that exists in Russia. A dissertation is a qualification work for certain fields of activity, it is written and defended if one's further career is planned in the academic or teaching sector. And as soon as the candidate leaves the academic path and embarks on a professional one, he or she is immediately subject to stringent checks by the state. In the case of teaching activities, it is necessary to pass a CNU competition with a certain list of specialties (sections 07 – 15 for language and literature), to which the dissertation must correspond formally and essentially. The CNRS (National Center for Scientific Research) has one section on language, 34 "Language Sciences". The requirements in these commissions are such that no dissertation with an undefined methodology and unconvincing conclusions will have a chance of being accepted. Such an indirect control system leads to high responsibility of universities for the quality of their products. Let's hope that the new defense system in the leading Russian universities will bring about the responsibility of universities for quality, stronger competition between universities.

If we transfer these arguments to the plane of ideology, then we will be dealing with a contradiction between egalitarianism and meritocracy. In France, the university diploma of the 2nd and 3rd cycles is theoretically available to everyone, but one can really find its practical application only if the quality of the work is high. Modern French reforms are clearly aimed at strengthening the principle of meritocracy. In this regard, both countries are similar. But the mechanisms of its control and evaluation are very different: the self-sufficiency of university diplomas in Russia, with the hope that the professional world will select the best candidates, and the French system of strict state competition for the right to hold the position. We will now move on to the analysis of the implementation of joint master's programs. Reforms associated with the entry of France and Russia into the Bologna process led to a certain freedom of universities in the formation of curricula, equal number of credits, similar requirements and procedures for the monitoring and assessment of knowledge (Apkarova, 2011). A serious difference in the ES of Russia and France is the fact that Russia has a compulsory state examination. A certain difficulty lies in the choice and approval of the topic of the master's thesis, which in Russia is tied to the code of the specialty, and in France to the broadly formulated areas of training within the Units of Education and Research (UFR). Reforms have not yet ended either in Russia or in France, but their logic and vectors are similar, and it seems that upon their completion they will lead to a certain harmonization of the educational environment, at least formally at the level of the 3 cycles of HE.

In conclusion, we will briefly dwell on several general issues related to the situation in the ES of Russia and France. By the end of the 20th century, French universities had stumbled into a number of systemic problems:

• low professionalization in comparison with grandes écoles (Chambard, 2014), relatively low competitiveness in the labor market;

• dispersion of funding due to a great number of small universities;

• lack of communication with the professional community;

• relatively weak academic potential (like in the USSR and then in Russia, academia were concentrated in the Academy of Sciences, the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) was the properly academic structure in France) (Monet, 2013).

The problems of the Russian higher education are very close to those listed above.

In the same period, the world educational landscape underwent a radical change, which manifested itself in such global processes as "the internationalization of higher education, increased competition and the emergence of new players in the international education market, the merging of academic institutions and the formation of educational clusters, increased attention to the quality of services provided by various participants in the market of educational services, creation and development of network structures" (Galichin, 2013, 101-102).

These challenges were addressed by the French and Russian higher education systems by means of a series of reforms. In France, first of all, it was the reform of 2002, the main goal of which was the European integration of the educational space, in particular, the introduction of a three-stage training system, Licentiate – Master's program – Doctoral program (LMD). Almost simultaneously, the Bologna Process was joined by Russia (2003). In addition to the transition to the new training system, France launched the process of expansion of universities (the University of Strasbourg became the first of them in 2008) (Picard, 2009). Similar processes, with the ultimate goal of consolidating education, have also been observed in the Russian educational space (Tyapin, Mal'tseva, 2016): since 2007, a number of major Russian universities have been unified through divisional management, absorption or merging. The consolidation of universities, initially aimed at concentrating the scientific and technical base, de-bureaucratization, reduction of the administrative apparatus, higher effectiveness of scientific and educational activities of university departments, caused a high public resonance. The Education Act of 2013 (Loi N 2013-660, 2013) in France began a new stage of reform, which is currently far from being completed. Almost simultaneously, the Federal Law "On Education in the Russian Federation" of 2012 (Federal'nyj zakon "Ob obrazovanii v Rossijskoj Federatsii", 2012) was passed, which is amended annually, which, like in France, testifies to the long-term nature and complexity of the reform process.

The main vectors of reforms underway in France and Russia include the following important principles of the development of education:

• democratization of education;

• professionalization and orientation on practice;

• integration of research and education (including through the expansion of universities and the creation of large research centers on their basis), in particular, simplification and standardization of the licentiate and master's programs;

• increased competitiveness through the introduction of English-language training programs, mandatory professional internships for all specialties, mandatory availability of e-courses, the development of information systems in education.

The analysis of the implemented joint master's programs "Russia – Europe: Languages and Cultures" of RUDN and Bordeaux Montaigne University and RUDN and University of Toulouse-Jean-Jaurès, as well as postgraduate programs with dual academic advising between of RUDN and the indicated French universities, has revealed some results concerning the efficiency of the process modernization of ES within the framework of reform. We will further dwell on each of the vectors of the development of modern education, declared as priority ones.